by Shawn Levy
* Ramfis finally divorced Octavia in 1960, up to which time Lita was his constant companion and, in effect, common-law wife. They eventually had a family together and she never acted again.
* Rubi tried the trick once again soon after, introducing Trujillo to another man who claimed to represent a major North American broadcast entity; this fellow arrived in Ciudad Trujillo less interested in talking about propaganda than stocks, namely, the certificates he had in his luggage and which he wanted to sell to the Benefactor for $700,000. Trujillo bit—on what turned out to be forged securities.
FIFTEEN
BETWEEN DYNASTIES
On November 21, 1958, mere weeks before the rebels took Havana, the Dominican ambassador to Cuba and his wife attended a philanthropic “Cuba Gala Night” at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan. They were seated at the affair at the same table as Mr. and Mrs. Nicolas Arroyo—the Cuban ambassador to the United States and his wife.
It was a late evening, and when they returned to their suite at the Plaza Hotel, the Dominicans were horrified to discover that they’d been burgled in their absence: Gone were a $7,000 mink, a $500 watch, a $200 pearl necklace, a $150 tie clasp, and $1,500 in cuff links and studs. But all of that was nothing compared with the $23,000 diamond-and-ruby necklace and earring set, purchased only the month before. Detectives gave the room the once-over and chatted with the couple: He remembered some fellow in the hallway looking right at him earlier in the evening, but there wasn’t much else in the way of useful information. On Sunday morning, the theft was front-page news in the New York Post:
“RUBIROSA ROBBED AT THE PLAZA.”
The episode was little more than a curiosity—hotel heists were a huge racket in New York for several years before and after this one. And the fact that the Rubirosas hadn’t bothered to entrust their valuables to the hotel safe, while indicative of a certain naiveté, may have been due simply to the fact that they had only flown in from Havana a few hours before the gala.
No, the most interesting thing about the story was the company the couple kept: ambassadors and their wives, financiers, high-echelon politicians, bluebloods. For decades, Rubi’s main society had been musicians, party girls, sportsmen, playboys, and denizens of the night; now he and Odile were likelier to hang out on the fringes of the Social Register than in the dark alleys of the Left Bank. At fifty, representing a government that was under pressure from within and without, sizing up the dynastic heir as his next potential patron, he was becoming an eminence grise, and, graying, showing the slightest hint of thickening, he looked the part. (He always looked the part.… )
It had been years since he had last chased a movie star or heiress around the world; he was no longer racing cars; he had even ceased to live in Paris proper. The house on Rue de Bellechasse sold in 1959 to a Rothschild for a cool sum reckoned by friends to be as high as a half-million dollars—figure five times that in today’s money. Rubi spent about half of what he recouped from the sale on a large house with a garden at 12 Rue Schlumberger in Marnes-la-Coquette, a simple suburban village where Eisenhower had headquartered during the war and which had since then principally been known as the home of Maurice Chevalier—whom Rubi might even have seen perform way back between the wars.
He was that sort of fellow, now, the sort who could remember the days between the wars—before them, even; you didn’t meet many his age in the hot spots that were starting to pop up, the sorts that Odile enjoyed so well. There was friction between them now, friends noticed: Whatever had made Rubi marry her in the first place there was now, four years into their relationship, a new dimension to it. Early on, it was tutor-tutee: He knew a world into which she would, with the proper cultivation, easily ascend, and he taught her what she needed to know. But once her place was assured, she may have proved a handful for him. Acquaintances don’t remember quarrels so much as absences: Just as Rubi had not been a stay-at-home husband, so Odile, it was whispered, liked to be out and about. “He has taught her so much that she has outdistanced him,” Ramfis Trujillo declared. A New York gossip columnist was more explicit: “It’s an old story that he and his too-young wife have not been a thrilling love match for some time now,” wrote Aileen Mehle (aka Suzy), adding that Rubi was particularly distressed by Odile’s “continual devil-may-care attitude, … her obvious disinterest in the Dominican ex-playboy and just as obvious interest in any number of his men friends.”
This sort of deflating scuttlebutt, of course, was far from Rubi’s public image, the idea that he was the center of attention wherever he went, the glow that ensured that he was still an asset to the tottering regime in Ciudad Trujillo. He was still Rubi, still out partying, still playing polo, still looking like a million bucks, still able to grab hold of someone, man or woman, still always filled with good spirit. He learned to dance the Twist; he liked it. All that exercise and yoga had kept him limber.
A woman who met him at around this time remembered him as still a vital, charming presence. “He had an almost feline grace,” she said, “wavy graying hair, quizzically arched eyebrows that could be mocking, amused or exquisitely languid, an irresistible wide smile that gave his otherwise too-handsome face a disconcerting air of sincerity.”
And it wasn’t just society women who were impressed by him. “He had the qualities that seemed to justify his career and reputation because of his outgoing charm,” recalled Alfredo Vorshin, a Dominican diplomat who also met him at this time. “Very generous, his door was always open to any Dominican of any social class; many drank his wine and ate at his table including opponents to the regime.”
It was true about his kindness to his countrymen: He never came across any of them partying in Paris without quietly arranging to pick up the tab. He enjoyed meeting high-spirited young Dominicans, like the poet he met at a roadside café who told him, “I want a life like you: drinking, dancing, fucking.…” Rubi laughed. “But you want to take over my job!”
At the same time, he could be philosophical, as when some other Dominicans—students and journalists exiled in Paris—told him about their grievances with Trujillo. He heard them out sympathetically, responding finally, “I’m a trujillista, but for me the trujillistas have nothing to offer. You do, on the other hand, because in the future you will govern the land. My only tie is to Trujillo. It’s a friendship that has passed many difficult tests, such as when Trujillo was so hard toward me because I married his daughter.”
Such savoir faire! Such dispassionate wisdom! Such cunning preparation for an uncertain future should the wind suddenly turn against the Benefactor!
He was good, Rubi was, and polished to a perfect sheen.
But he couldn’t control his fate, tied as it was to the machinations of truly giant figures on the historical stage.
From the vantage of his new post in Brussels, Rubi could see clearly that the Trujillo dynasty was toppling. He’d been sent there in July 1959, not so much to handle diplomatic chores as to keep an eye on Ramfis, who was there to undergo a barrage of psychoanalytic treatments after slaughtering all those rebels. Within the year, the Dominican heir apparent was released from his physicians’ care and given reign over Dominican affairs in Belgium, which he handled with predictable tactlessness and crudity. Surrounded by his posse of swellheaded upstarts, including his brother-in-law Chesty Estévez and Rubi’s nephew Gilberto, Ramfis acted even more grandly in Europe than he had in the United States, bolting from city to city on whims, cruelly punishing hangers-on who didn’t comply wordlessly with his wishes, drinking to excess (a habit that only exacerbated the side effects of his medication), pouting, spending money. By the spring of 1960, his father had given up all hope that Ramfis could represent the Dominican Republic in the diplomatic corps—“Hell, that one’s no good for anything,” Trujillo railed when it was suggested that his son be given an appointment to the European Common Market. And so Ramfis holed up in a house in Neuilly-sur-Seine, right next door to Aly Khan’s digs and not far from where Rubi was living; the two
Dominican sportsmen played polo regularly—virtually their only connection and one of the few healthy habits in which Ramfis willingly indulged.
Back home, the Benefactor had more pressing matters to attend to. Rightfully fearful of another invasion (perhaps from Cuba, perhaps from Venezuela, perhaps from Costa Rica—he’d aggravated them all into justifiable enmity), he simultaneously grew harsher on domestic dissenters and exported his own brand of counterinsurgency, the latter of which climaxed in a botched attempt on the life of Venezuelan president R6mulo Betancourt, who was perceived as a chief agitator against Trujillo’s rule. With this provocation, the Catholic church abandoned its long alliance with his government, assigning Archbishop Lino Zanini, whom Juan Perón had always blamed for his own downfall, as the new Papal Nuncio to Ciudad Trujillo. Not long after that, the hemispheric diplomatic council, the Organization of American States, began proceedings to bring sanctions against the Dominican Republic, including an embargo on exporting petroleum, petroleum products, trucks, and spare automotive parts out of the country. And then the United States declared void a treaty that allowed for a bonus to be paid for sugar imports from the Dominican Republic—a deal that had regularly netted the Benefactor and his interests more than $13 million a year.
Of course, the Dominican Republic was of increased concern to the United States. Having lost Cuba, officials of both the outgoing Eisenhower and incoming Kennedy administrations—as well as careerists at the CIA and Department of State—kept watchful, even frightened, eyes on the country. It was a dicey time: Dominican opponents of the Trujillo regime were given at least inklings of encouragement, while the regime still commanded support in Washington. There was fear, naturally, that Trujillo’s cruelties would incite a rebellion that the United States couldn’t control, and those fears led to conversations between American interests and members of the Dominican government and military who—along with so many of their countrymen—had suffered personal losses and wanted to see the regime crushed. But at the same time, many in power in the United States felt that it would be too easy to pull the wrong string in Ciudad Trujillo and see the whole thing unravel and another Cuba so dangerously close.
The whole business was a mess, and Trujillo seemed to be doing his best to make it as bad as possible. By August 1960, the Eisenhower administration cut its diplomatic ties to the Dominican Republic, closing its embassy, recalling personnel (including CIA operatives), and leaving behind a single representative, Henry Dearborn, who was as connected to the American intelligence community as he was to the diplomatic corps. Dearborn made contacts among Dominican dissidents—a group that included some high-ranking officials and even some members of the extended Trujillo family, all of whom had suffered slights and worse at the Benefactor’s hand. Dearborn told Washington that there was a strong sense throughout the country that Trujillo had to be removed, by whatever means necessary. That drastic tack didn’t yet have the blessing of the White House, but Trujillo was increasingly being seen in Washington as one of the world leaders—including Fidel Castro, the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, and South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem—whose continued rule ran contrary to American interests in the Cold War. The walls of history were closing in on Trujillo, and everyone knew he would fight to the death before he allowed himself and his regime to be crushed by them.
Despite the clouds that had gathered to threaten his patron, Rubi was still chiefly engaged in the pursuit of pleasure. On January 30, 1960, he took possession of a new toy, a Ferrari 250 GT Pinin Farina Cabriolet Series II sports car, serial number 1561GT—silver with red leather interior and black convertible top, one of only two hundred of these little rocket-powered beauties the factory ever made.* He picked it up in Belgium (as in other of his automotive purchases, a tax dodge may have been involved); it must have been a joy to drive back to Paris.
He had returned to France full-time. With Ramfis no longer under the care of Belgian doctors, there was no more call for Rubi to be in Brussels. Trujillo, increasingly investing him with trust, couldn’t be sure where or when he’d need him next, so he invented a new position for him—inspector of embassies, a kind of carte blanche post that allowed him to present himself anywhere his singular services were called for without the formality of having his credentials recognized by the host government.
To be back in Paris was a treat and a relief: polo, night life, the social ramble. Especially the social ramble.
On the night of May 12, Rubi and Odile were at a dinner party in Ville-d’Avray, a suburb of Paris not far from Marnes-la-Coquette. They had taken the new car and looked forward to an enjoyable evening with hosts Gerard and Lorraine Bonnet and their fellow guests Baron and Baroness Guy de Rothschild, Baron Elie de Rothschild, Stavros Niarchos, and Aly Khan, accompanied, as usual, by his longtime sweetheart, the fashion model Lise Bourdin Bettina. It was a sophisticatedly late party, but when Aly failed to arrive by nine-thirty, his hosts were worried. Then a phone call: There had been an accident; Aly had crashed his Lancia sedan in nearby Suresnes and had been killed.
Rubi had already seen several friends die behind the wheel. Fon de Portago, the dashing Spanish nobleman, had been killed along with a dozen spectators in a catastrophe in the Italian village of Cavriana, near Verona, during the Mille Miglia race in May 1957. Four other of Portago’s Ferrari teammates died similarly within eighteen months, including Rubi’s former racing rivals Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorne. And, of course, there had been Jean-Pierre Wimille. But those men were race drivers and were killed in the heat of competition—a hazard that went with the glamorous profession. Aly was simply a zestful man going out to dinner: His girl was along for the ride, as was his chauffeur (useless in the backseat). It was a senseless death. And the very next day, Harry Schell, another of Rubi’s racing chums, was killed in a practice run in Northamptonshire: a sickening coincidence.*
Odile had only just managed in the last eighteen months or so to keep Rubi out of auto racing. Perhaps this string of tragedies would turn him off the sport for good.
He still traveled to keep up with the polo season. Winters brought him to Palm Beach, Florida, with its mild weather, fabulous shopping and night life, and, of course, proximity to seats of power of both the Dominican Republic and the United States.
Palm Beach remained a terribly social scene for him. His old Cuba friends, the Chilean sportsman Emilio Tagle* and the former American ambassador to Havana, Earl Smith, had retired there and were always happy to host Rubi and Odile. The polo crowd was on hand, as were acquaintances he’d made and kept as friends from that tumultuous season with Barbara Hutton. Although Rubi might be shunned by the older members of the set centered around Barbara’s lordly aunt, Marjorie Merriwether Post, the younger and more daring socialites were still happy to know him. He met Barbara’s niece, Marwee Durant, at a party and made a play for her. As she remembered, “My girlfriend says to me, ‘You know who that is? He’s supposed to be the greatest lover in the whole world!’ And I say, ‘No kiddin’? Hell-lo!’” He drove her home to the family estate Mar-A-Lago and her grandma hit the roof: “Under no circumstances do I ever want you to ever talk to that man again, Marwee, let alone see him.” She sneaked out and saw him anyhow, claiming later that it was all chaste: “I didn’t want to sleep with him; he was out of my class. Like an amateur playing with a pro.”
Equally delicate was Rubi’s relationship with Jimmy Donohue, Barbara’s cousin who had carried on all over the world since Rubi first met him as the companion and, apparently, lover of the duchess of Windsor—this despite his homosexuality and her very-much-aware-of-it-all husband. In May 1961, Rubi and Odile had ringside seats at the Convention Hall in Miami Beach to watch Floyd Patterson defend his heavyweight boxing title in his third fight against Ingemar Johansson; along with such others as Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, Milton Berle, and Debbie Reynolds, Donohue was there with a campy retinue with whom he had rented an entire floor at the Fontainebleau Hotel. After the fight, Rubi and Odile tagged along to the hotel
for a drink, and Rubi found himself being uncomfortably cruised by several of Jimmy’s gay chums, who had all, naturally, heard all the whispers about him. Rubi was so rattled by the scene—some rooms had been given over to an orgy—that he insisted on being chaperoned when he had to use the rest room. “Not you, Jimmy!” he made sure to add when he asked his host for some help in the matter.
Rubi had yet one more particular friend in Florida, a true spiritual kinsman who proved a connection to a world that Rubi—and, indirectly, Trujillo—very much wanted in on. Since his escapades with Zsa Zsa and Barbara Hutton, Rubi had been a fast friend of Igor Cassini, the gossip columnist who wrote under the pseudonym Cholly Knickerbocker for the Hearst newspapers. Cassini, known to chums as Ghighi, wrote an immensely popular jargon-rich three-dot column that aimed a degree or three higher in social rank than those of such rivals as Walter Winchell and Ed Sullivan; he wrote about New York’s—and, indeed, the world’s—top families with the same intimacy with which he covered show biz; he was widely credited with coining the phrase “jet set” to describe his subjects and their swell ilk.
The two met when Rubi was still married to Doris and first enjoying the delights of New York night life. Cassini, already well en route to his own string of five wives, found in Rubi a perfect comrade-in-arms; the two fell in with one another instantly, and Rubi would become a frequent source and subject for Cassini during the next two decades, just as he would become a consultant to Oleg Cassini, Igor’s older brother, when that noted designer of women’s fashions decided to try his hand at a line for men.
The kinship of Igor and Rubi was based as much on personal compatibility as on the coincidence of their usefulness to each other. Cassini had been born in Sebastopol, Russia, to an Italian countess and her White Russian diplomat husband, probably some half-dozen years after Rubi. (Like the Gabors, the Cassinis could never be ascribed specific ages; the records of their births were lost to the vagaries of history and a penchant for self-mythologizing.) With the rise of the Bolsheviks, the family left the fatherland for the motherland, settling in Florence, where father, Alexander Loiewski, took the name of mother, Marguerite Cassini, and settled into a life of cursing the Communists and chasing women while his wife set up a profitable dressmaking business.
